The Natural Habitat - Side Story: The Mysterious Missing Panties
by Tozette
Summary: This is a side-story to my current monstrous college AU "The Natural Habitat of Haruno Sakura". Sakura's underpants are missing and she's forced to put the remaining shreds of her dignity on the line to locate them. It's not really looking good for our hero.


Gal Can't Help It left a review on the latest chapter of The Natural Habitat of Haruno Sakura about Sakura's underpants. Now there is a side-story about Sakura's underpants. Magic.

This is entirely regarding Sakura's underpants, and will make no sense unless you understand at least the premise of _The Natural Habitat of Haruno Sakura._

* * *

><p>Laundry was kind of an exercise in brazening out the humiliation of existence for Sakura. She would never forget the day Sasori idly commented that she has 'superlative taste in underwear,' and handed her a pair that had somehow been blown from the line.<p>

That was... um, nice? She supposed? But disturbing. So disturbing.

"Thank you?" she said, snatching her panties from his fingers and hugging them to her chest. She cleared her throat. "Um. Yes. Thank you."

Sasori's expression didn't change at all. "You're very red," he said.

"Uh," she said. Then: "Please don't look at my underwear!" she blurted, squishing her underpants into a tiny ball against her chest and contemplating things, oh, terrible things, things like: _oh god the ones with holes in them,_ and _those green ones with the elastic all gone out_ - _oh my god do any of them have blood stains_?

Sasori tilted his head. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

She thrust one hand out blindly, palm out, and felt it bump gently into Sasori's chest. "Go. Go now. Thank you. Go."

He turned on his heel and glided noiselessly away, no doubt contemplating the mysteries of his housemate's underpants.

Since then, Sakura had been very protective of her panties.

So it was with some consternation that Sakura frowned at her clean laundry.

There were three pairs of underpants there.

She scratched her head.

She was pretty sure there had been seven when she'd put them all in the wash...?

She looked through her laundry again. Nope.

She searched the tiny back-room they shoved their washing machine in: nope.

She went outside and examined the surrounding area, but there was still no sign of her underpants.

To: PIG

Timestamp: 3:43 PM

Message body: 57% of my underpants are missing.

From: PIG

Timestamp: 3:45 PM

Message body: twenty on the blond guy in the cult

Sakura blinked. The possibility that one of her housemates had taken her panties... had not occurred to her.

Although in all fairness it was pretty unlikely, wasn't it? Ino was a huge drama queen - why on earth would anybody want Sakura's underpants? Not to discount herself, but at least half the men she lived with were legitimately prettier than she was.

She contemplated the possibility dubiously for a second.

Well, it couldn't hurt to _ask_ them if they'd seen her underwear, could it?

Aside from, you know, her dignity.

Ah, well. She didn't have much of that left, anyway.

She decided to try Sasori first, because how much more awkward could it possibly be than the first time.

"No," he said slowly. "You know I don't actually go out of my way to collect your underpants," he said, as though he suspected that maybe she thought he was scurrying back to his lair, hiding beneath his bed and huffing them in the night.

"Uh," she said, "no, I know that. I just..."

"If your underpants are missing," said Sasori levelly, "I'd try Hidan."

Then he closed his door in her face.

_Hidan?_

How badly did she _really_ want her pants back? Badly enough to ask Hidan about it?

Ugh, between all the stupid stuff that kept happening in her life Sakura was actually running out of clothes. She _did_ want her underpants that badly.

Sakura heaved a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and went to find out.

Hidan answered his door half-naked, and oh, he was pale and surprisingly well-formed, ropy and lean with muscle, but just then he had a triangle in a circle drawn across his chest in blood - _his_ blood, it looked like, from the bandages on his left hand - and, god, if her panties had been anywhere near him she was going to burn them and buy new ones. No, just no.

"You can watch if you don't interrupt," he said when she hesitated.

"God, no," she said, shaking her head. "No. I do not want to watch your ritual."

"You should be honoured I offered," he growled, eyes flashing. "And this is why heathens like you are going straight to hell. I'm trying to do you a fucking favour here!"

Sakura might have taken him more seriously if he hadn't been rubbing a stray bit of blood between his fingers, ignoring it as as it dried and flaked off in tiny curls and drifted to the floor.

"Okay, okay, sorry," she said, hoping just to side-step that whole conversation. She rubbed her hands through her hair and opened her mouth to cut off whatever he was about to blurt out next. "Do you think..." she coughed, a little nervously, "do you think some of my laundry perhaps... got mixed up with yours?" she asked delicately.

That made Hidan him pause. He leaned against the doorjamb, revealing his other hand, which was attached to the biggest cleaver ever. "I have no damn clue where your laundry is," he said. "I haven't been in there in a month."

Of course he hadn't.

Aside from being tragically cute and an absolute lunatic, Hidan was also a filth-monster.

"I, uh, seem to be missing some. Underwear. Sasori said you might have seen it."

His expression changed rapidly from ire to delight. "Sasori told you I might have seen your panties, Sakura-san?" he asked with a wicked smile.

She took a deep, frustrated breath. "Hidan-san..." She balled one hand into a fist.

"Don't hit me unless you mean it," he recommended. "But, no, I haven't got your underpants. I'm not that kind of degenerate. Tough luck." He spread his hands innocently - or, it would have looked innocent if he hadn't been bloodied and holding a huge knife.

Sakura backed away from the pointy end. "Okay," she said, waving him away. "Okay."

At least it was easy to _ask_ Deidara, because he was ten times easier to get along with than any of her other housemates. He snorted a laugh while he was mixing a new glaze, blowing probably-toxic dust across the room as he did. "That's hilarious, I -" he stopped and looked at her. "Oh." He said. "You're serious?"

"Very serious. I asked _Hidan_, Deidara-kun," she admitted.

He raised his eyebrows, grudgingly impressed. "Maa, Sakura-san, that's called masochism, yeah."

She shook her head. "Is there any chance you might have gotten some clothes mixed up, or...?"

Deidara shrugged. "You can look if you like," he offered. "But I don't think so."

She clenched her jaw. "Are you sure you want me digging through _your_ -"

"My panties?" Deidara interrupted, cheerfully lecherous. "Nah, I have to mix this."

Sakura heaved a sigh and, since she was already in this far, went to look.

If there was anything weirder and more embarrassing than having Sasori comment on her taste in underpants, it was fishing through Deidara's. At least they were - mostly - clean.

_Sakura_ may never have been clean again. But the underpants were.

Thank god.

Still, she didn't turn up her missing underpants.

Sakura knocked on Kakuzu's door.

He opened it and stood there in silence, a looming, glowering silhouette in the early evening light streaming from his window.

Sakura opened her mouth. No sound came out, because, well: Kakuzu? _Really_? It didn't seem very likely. And she was pretty sure she didn't want to have this discussion with Kakuzu. Ever.

He stared down at her.

_Ever_.

"You know what, never mind," she muttered.

He made an annoyed grunting noise and closed the door barely an inch from her nose. Sakura flinched.

Kakuzu returned to his laptop, where he was setting up a used-panties auction on eBay. He wondered if Sakura was young enough to count as 'barely legal,' and then typed the phrase in anyway. It was worth it for the markup.


End file.
